Podium, the leading customer communication platform for local businesses, has been named to Forbes’ Next Billion-Dollar Startups list for 2018. An elite group of 25 companies, the list highlights those that members from Forbes’ editorial team and TrueBridge Capital Partners believe have a strong shot at reaching a valuation of $1 billion or more in the near future.

“The startup environment is incredibly demanding and competitive, and we’ve been proud of the passionate team and loyal customers we’ve accumulated in these first few years,” said Eric Rea, CEO and co-founder of Podium. “As we have gone from working in a spare bedroom in an apartment to having local businesses connect with one in eight US cell phone owners using Podium’s platform, we have had a long list of humbling moments. Earning a spot on this ranking is definitely one of those moments and we look forward to continued growth in years to come.”

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Founded in 2014 and now working with more than 25,000 businesses to create over 4 million customer interactions a month, Podium has quickly become one of the fastest-growing SaaS companies in the US Recently hitting $50M in annual recurring revenue (ARR), the company is changing the way that local, offline businesses interact with their customers across a variety of markets including automotive, medical/dental, retail and home services.Making this Forbes list adds to the widespread recognition Podium has received in 2018 so far, including being:

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• Ranked No. 13 on the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest growing companies for 2018
• Named the 2018 Best SaaS Product for Small Business/SMBs by The SaaS Awards
• Named to the Forbes 2018 Cloud 100
• Listed as one of Inc.’s Best Workplaces for 2018

To compile the annual list of the Next Billion-Dollar Startups, Forbes teamed up with TrueBridge Capital Partners to ask nearly 200 venture capital firms to nominate the companies they thought were most likely to become unicorns. Forbes narrowed down the field from over 100 businesses to 25 by looking at revenue, funding and their most recent valuation.

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